Even the softest, quietest sound is no small feat to produce. Here’s how it works: The lungs pump air through the trachea (windpipe) and into the larynx, where the vocal cords are located. The air makes the vocal folds—multilayered folds of tissue—vibrate, and they alternately trap and release air. Each release billows a small puff of air into the pharynx; each puff is the beginning of a sound wave that’s enhanced as it travels through the pharynx and out through the mouth.

Everything from how much air is pushed from the lungs, to the shape of the vocal folds and the mouth, affect how a voice sounds.

But the voice is not just extraordinary in its physical function. It’s used to communicate, to yell for help when we’re scared, to cry when we’re sad, to let someone know that we’re angry. We use our voice to sing “Happy Birthday,” soothe fussy babies and yelp with joy at good news. An indicator of individuality and identity, we want our unique voices to be heard, both literally and figuratively.

Kristina WarrenMay 4
UVA Chapel

Kristina Warren, a trained singer working on a doctorate in composition and computer technologies at UVA, knows plenty of techniques to control, expand and explore her range, how to exploit the texture, the quality and the weight of her voice. But at some point, she found those techniques limiting. There’s more to the voice, she says, than hitting certain notes.

While studying both science and music as an undergraduate at Duke University, Warren became interested in digital sound. Inspired by loop pedals commonly used for guitar and keyboards, Warren began experimenting with digital manipulation of the voice, using computer software linked to a microphone to change how she sounded. Tired of constantly stepping back and forth between the microphone and the computer or MIDI controller on stage, Warren decided to combine the two into a single instrument, one she created herself and named the Abacus.

The Abacus allows Kristina Warren to dig deeply into what the voice can do when combined with electronics and stretch it into new emotional and sonic territory.

On her website, Warren describes the Abacus as consisting of “eight toggles, two LEDs, one potentiometer and one Arduino Teensy, all molded in thermoplastic, which is shaped around a basic mic clip. It communicates with MaxMSP via USB connection and serial protocol.” Or, in short, the instrument, which looks like a souped-up microphone, is a series of toggles and knobs wired to a tiny circuit board that’s connected to a computer and controlled by software. Warren programs the software prior to performing or recording, giving each knob a particular sound or effect—like reverb, pitch, legato, staccato. When she sings into the mic and flips the switch programmed for reverb, the reverb (the persistence of a sound after it’s produced) effect will be applied to the audio signal coming out of the microphone.

The innovative Abacus was a semi-finalist in this year’s Margaret Guthman New Musical Instrument Competition held at Georgia Tech—the annual event seeks to identify “the world’s next generation of musical instruments.”

Warren keeps the software programming simple to focus on the feeling of the performance and less on controlling her arsenal of modular sounds. She likens the software to a box of Legos, where each sound effect available in the software is like a brick. When she’s programming, she’s building a Lego castle without the directions. The next time she programs the Abacus, she can dismantle that entirely and build a new castle, or perhaps a house, or use its windows in a space station. She can move the bricks around as she chooses.

The Abacus allows Warren to dig deeply into what the voice can do when combined with electronics and stretch it into new emotional and sonic territory.

She might sing a melody, then take a tiny part of that melody and loop or stretch it, perhaps granulate it so that it sounds cyborg-esque, not quite human. She might screech, or shriek—like a blues singer might shriek to emphasize emotion, but Warren will filter it to extend over a period of time, then filter it again to sound deep and rumbly.

Warren knows her music is unusual and she sometimes asks a lot of her listeners—on occasion, she says people have told her they’ve felt scared or anxious—and while she’s sensitive to that, her intent is to change how we think about singing and voice capability, moving away from beauty and toward “finding another metric of sonic quality.”

To Warren, the voice is about more than Maria Callas’ arias and Freddie Mercury’s falsetto. Even mundane sounds, such as throat-clearing, or “ugly” sounds like screeching and blubbering, can be beautiful if we’re open to perceiving them that way.

“A lot of singing has to do with conveying beauty in one way or another,” says Warren, who points out that singers—female singers especially—are expected to sound “good” or have “pretty” voices. But “beauty is a cage,” she says. “I can do a lot of cool, novel sounds that aren’t necessarily beautiful but are interesting in other ways.”

Legendary duo Robin and Linda Williams (below, left) have played Americana music for longer than the genre has existed. Their musical beginnings trace to North Carolina, where Linda was a school teacher and Robin played full-time on the coffeehouse scene. Connecting through “a robust blend of

Not many people are able to fail their way to success, to turn what ought to have been their most humiliating defeat into fame and profit. Then again, Tommy Wiseau is not most people. A perplexing mix of sincerity and complete mystery, Wiseau gained notoriety as the writer, director, producer

Charlottesville Ballet’s The Nutcracker is a skillfully choreographed, engaging take on tradition for all ages. The story begins when Clara receives a wooden nutcracker as a holiday gift, and it comes to life along with other toys that accompany her on a journey through an enchanted land filled

Director Michael Slon conducts the 90-member strong Oratorio Society of Virginia for Christmas at The Paramount. Composed of some the area’s finest vocalists, the chorus performs English carols and traditional Spanish holiday compositions, as well as J.A.C. Redford’s Welcome All Wonders: A

Charlottesville’s Second Draw has declared a new style of acoustic rock it calls “bluejam.” Founded in a raw, energetic style, somewhere between country and jam rock, the group’s self-proclaimed genre blends driving guitar with bluegrass instruments including mandolin, banjo and accordion. The

John Waters is a man of many names. Dubbed the Prince of Puke, the People’s Pervert and the Pope of Trash, among others, the legendary filmmaker has made a career out of his personal brand of quirky, twisted humor. Although best known for bringing Hairspray to the big screen along with cult

“I see like an artist and think like a designer,” says Lisa Ryan about her stylish collages, on view in “Please Don’t Ask It Can’t Be Explained” at Studio IX. Unlike most collage artists, Ryan focuses on formal considerations, rather than narrative. Her work is fresh with an almost total lack

Ever seen a cake go up in flames, or bamboo bathed in blue beams? At PVCC’s Let There Be Light, an illuminating art gallery celebrating the winter solstice, 26 artists present 21 light-centered art installations, creating a magical glow that cuts through winter’s early nightfall. Bring a

When guitarist and singer-songwriter David Rawlings put together his third album, Poor David’s Almanack, he created a story written in the timeless language of American folk. Blending electric and acoustic guitar with twangy vocals, the album took shape in Nashville, where Rawlings was joined

After releasing a number of songs as a national recording artist and working with Tyler Perry on Madea Goes to Jail, Chad Lawson Cooper turned to theater for a project that combines passion, education and an emotional quest for slavery reparation in Justice on Trial: Black Lives Matter Too.

Sitting on a cushioned bench in the back room of the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar, Phil Green takes a drag from a hookah hose and exhales a stream of hazy smoke that hangs in the fading afternoon sunlight before recalling an early memory. In that memory, Green’s about 6 years old, riding around in

Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri isn’t the only story about the blurred lines between doing the right thing and making a bad situation worse, but it’s the only one that matters. McDonagh has made a career of pitch-black satires that find the humor and humanity in

Writer and performer Ann Randolph has lived an amazing life. In college, rather than paying to live in a dorm, she lived in the schizophrenic unit of a state mental hospital in exchange for writing plays with patients. She worked the graveyard shift at a homeless shelter for minimum wage for 10

Standing at a waist-high, cork-topped work table in her West Main Street design studio, Kim “Kylla” Dylla measures an arm’s length of white thread and uses her teeth to snip it from the spool. She pinches a curved sewing needle between her silver-ringed forefinger and thumb and slides the

Mavis Staples If All I Was Was Black (Anti-Records) I haven’t been checking out the Jeff Tweedy- Mavis Staples collaborations of the last few years—apparently, I have been a fool. If All I Was Was Black is a nearly-miraculous alchemy of Staples’ gospel-soul and everything Tweedy throws at her.

First Fridays: December 1 “Every artist starts with something inside themselves that feels true to them,” says sculptor and installation artist Ivy Naté. “I’m not sure what came first for me…balancing chaos and order, or reinventing the obvious.” “I feel lucky that at times I am able to

Before you ask, yes, you will cry at Coco. No matter how many Pixar movies you’ve seen, no matter how much tolerance you’ve built up to their brand of touching sincerity, and no matter how far into this particular outing you get without shedding a tear, you will have a small puddle at the

Kamasi Washington has played alongside some of the biggest names in hip-hop, funk, jazz and soul—Lauryn Hill, Nas, Chaka Khan, Herbie Hancock, Thundercat and Raphael Saadiq among them. But after turning heads with his playing and arrangements on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly in 2015, and

Everyone loves the classic holiday stories, but, let’s be honest, we’ve seen it all—Christmas past, present and future. Instead of choosing one, the creators of Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some!) perform every yuletide tale they can muster, flying through costumes and carols,

Returning for the sixth installment of his annual Christmas tour, Robert Earl Keen has always had a special place for the holidays in his Americana-infused heart. Since 1984, Keen has crafted 19 albums, among them his holiday fan-favorite, Merry Christmas from the Family. He pours his energy,